Price Guide, November 2005: Motherboards
by Haider Farhan on November 5, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Intel Motherboards
Intel's main two chipsets for the LGA775 are the 955X and 945P. The difference between the two is that the 955X supports 8GB of RAM, ECC-RAM (which is great for low end servers and workstations) and the main difference is the Intel Memory Pipeline Technology (iMPT). Through testing, we've seen that the iMPT benefits are small and are only seen in synthetic benchmarks. And if you won't notice it in real-world workloads, then it is obvious that there is no purpose in spending large amounts of money on such a feature. Between the 955X and the 945P chipsets, we suggest the 945P because we don't see the huge price difference warranted in the 955X.
As one of the most expensive yet one of the best of the 955X based boards, the ASUS P5WD2 Premium [RTPE: 955X P5WD2] supports dual core CPUs, 8 channel HD audio, DDR2 800 (ECC and non-ECC) and one revision with WiFi-TV.
Hovering in at around $108, one of the good buys this week in the 945P chipset category is the Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G [RTPE: 945P GA-8I945P-G]; fully-featured with SATA 3.0, support of up to 4GB of DDR667, dual core processor support, and Gigabit LAN.
For those who don't need a high-end graphics accelerator, the 945G may be right for your application. It's definitely not something for gamers, but should be adequate enough for most 2D work. We recommend either the Gigabyte 945G GA-8I945G Pro [RTPE: GA-8I945G Pro] or the MSI 945G Neo-F [RTPE: MS-7176-040]; the MSI board being the cheaper alternative.
Intel's main two chipsets for the LGA775 are the 955X and 945P. The difference between the two is that the 955X supports 8GB of RAM, ECC-RAM (which is great for low end servers and workstations) and the main difference is the Intel Memory Pipeline Technology (iMPT). Through testing, we've seen that the iMPT benefits are small and are only seen in synthetic benchmarks. And if you won't notice it in real-world workloads, then it is obvious that there is no purpose in spending large amounts of money on such a feature. Between the 955X and the 945P chipsets, we suggest the 945P because we don't see the huge price difference warranted in the 955X.
As one of the most expensive yet one of the best of the 955X based boards, the ASUS P5WD2 Premium [RTPE: 955X P5WD2] supports dual core CPUs, 8 channel HD audio, DDR2 800 (ECC and non-ECC) and one revision with WiFi-TV.
Hovering in at around $108, one of the good buys this week in the 945P chipset category is the Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G [RTPE: 945P GA-8I945P-G]; fully-featured with SATA 3.0, support of up to 4GB of DDR667, dual core processor support, and Gigabit LAN.
For those who don't need a high-end graphics accelerator, the 945G may be right for your application. It's definitely not something for gamers, but should be adequate enough for most 2D work. We recommend either the Gigabyte 945G GA-8I945G Pro [RTPE: GA-8I945G Pro] or the MSI 945G Neo-F [RTPE: MS-7176-040]; the MSI board being the cheaper alternative.
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highlandsun - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
Yeah, the Gigabyte offerings look good, though I'll be waiting for the GA-K8N51PVMT-9 with 6150/430.rrcn - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Updated. ;)Anton74 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Indeed, kudos to AT! :)siliconthoughts - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Agree totally. In fact I'm posting from one (Gigabyte K8N51GMF-9) that is pretty nice.Featureset spanks the listed integrated video boards (Microatx with Gigabit, firewire, 3Gb SATA2, 1x PCIe and 16x PCIe and 2 PCI slots, HD audio, athhlon X2 compatible.)
To top it off, MWAVE carries it for $72.50! cheap, good and fast. Such a sweet deal, yet strangely not in the list.
Anton74 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Yes, I've had my eye on that exact board as well. Now all I need is retail S939 Sempron availability for the perfect office system. :)